


Hey, Stranger, What's your Name? Have We Met Before?

by blarfshnorgull



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Conversations, Comedy, Crack, F/M, Glenn's middle name might as well be Dramatic Bitch, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Midlife Crisis, Referenced Past Relationships, Sort of written for day 3 of Rodrigue weekend, Sylvain's girlfriend is left ambiguous on purpose, also do my betas know I would die for them?, awkward dinners, because i would, but like in a funny way, but only as a joke, it's felix suffering hours, yes beta we live (unlike Glenn), you can pretend it's whoever you want to honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23266354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blarfshnorgull/pseuds/blarfshnorgull
Summary: Rodrigue is having a midlife crisis, and Felix and Glenn are suffering. Somehow, every new piece of information makes it worse.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Glenn Fraldarius/Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 42
Kudos: 174





	Hey, Stranger, What's your Name? Have We Met Before?

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of written for Rodrigue weekend. I had the idea for this ages ago but a friend showed me the prompts for this even and that gave me the push I needed lol. This is for the day three prompts "modern au" and "family"

It’s a Thursday night when Glenn calls.

Normally, this wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary, except Felix is damn well certain that he’s told Glenn that he would be busy with Ingrid on Thursday. Glenn isn’t the type to forget when Felix makes plans. He practically turns ‘Felix is socializing’ into its own holiday. 

Not that ‘Ingrid is coming over to help him make cookies for Lysithea’s bake sale’ is exactly the most social of plans. Still, Glenn  _ never _ interrupts him.

Yet here Felix is, at a quarter past seven, holding a bag of chocolate chips like an idiot, all while watching Ingrid’s phone buzz away.

He watches the name Glenn Fraldarius flash across the screen like it’s challenging him. Not that glaring at the phone is going to change anything.

“Glenn’s calling.”

“Can you answer it? I’m a little…” Ingrid raises her hands, covered in far too much egg than making cookies should warrant. It’s occurring to Felix at this moment that they aren’t exactly the best bakers for the job. He offers a moment of silence for Lysithea’s bake sale as he answers the phone.

“Ingrid, I really need—”

Felix cuts him off immediately. “You’re on speaker phone.” 

Glenn is using his ‘I’m incredibly desperate’ voice, which means one of two things: either there’s a very genuine crisis going on, or he’s horny. Since it’s Ingrid’s phone, there’s a distinct possibility of it being the latter. A little  _ too  _ distinct.

And Felix will not accidentally answer one of their phone sex calls  _ ever _ again. 

“Holy fucking shit! Felix, I’m so glad you’re you’re here too.”

Okay. Definitely not phone sex. Which unfortunately means there’s an actual crisis. Which then begs the question what —

“Felix, dad has lost his  _ fucking _ mind.”

Goddess, Felix wishes it had been phone sex instead.

Felix plops Ingrid’s phone on the countertop in front of her and walks over to the nearest seat. There’s no way in hell he’s taking crazy news about their dad standing up. He’ll take his chocolate chips, sit down, and cradle them as a poor substitute for an emotional support animal. And most importantly, let Ingrid deal with this.

And she steps up to the plate like a champ.

“Glenn, slow down. Just stop and breathe.”

There’s a beat where Glenn takes a second to compose himself. A painfully long beat that somehow feels like an omen to an oncoming disaster.

“I just really need both of you to come to the family dinner during the holiday,” Glenn finally manages.

“We’ll be there. Don’t worry about it,” Ingrid reassures him. Felix never consented to these plans, but he’s certainly not going to argue with Ingrid. Especially not when Glenn is  _ this _ freaked out.

“You don’t understand, he’s  _ having a midlife crisis.” _

Ingrid stops in her metaphorical tracks, her eyes widen comically. If Felix had been the one speaking, he would’ve been equally caught off-guard. He’s positive that he would be mirroring her expression. Actually, he probably has the same expression already.

When Felix was considering potential crises, their dad’s midlife one was not on the list.

“Are you —” Ingrid starts but Felix beats her to it.

“Explain.”

“Felix, I saw him with another woman.” 

Felix rolls his eyes. Their mother died years ago; their father can date whoever he pleased. Maybe (hopefully) Glenn was overreacting?

“And she was  _ young,” _ Glenn continues. “Like  _ really _ young.”

This wasn’t sounding good.

“And she had  _ huge _ boobs.”

Oh  _ no. _

“Are you sure that they were…” Ingrid pauses, probably searching for the most tactful way to continue. “...together?” she finally offers.

“With where I saw their hands, I fucking think so,” Glenn barks out, in the vocal approximation of a thousand yard stare.

Felix doesn’t want to think about that statement anymore than he has to.

“Please, I  _ need _ you two there,” Glenn pleads. “She’s going to be there, and I  _ can’t _ deal with this alone.”

Ingrid shoots Felix a look of wild disbelief. If she’s looking for answers, he has none.

“We’ll be there...?” Ingrid finally manages, sounding more like a question than it should. Not that Felix can blame her, he’s not exactly feeling confident about this either.

Glenn breathes out a sigh of relief. “You have no idea how much I need this. It’ll just be the seven of us. I’ll see you next Saturday.”

And then he hangs up just as abruptly as he called.

Wait.

_ Seven? _

“Did he call Sylvain and Dimitri already?” Felix wonders out loud. A horrible realization hits him like a bolt of lightning as he looks at  _ Ingrid’s _ phone.

That bastard was going to call him  _ last. _

—  
  


Entering the living room of Felix’s childhood home feels like a prelude of the worst to come. It doesn’t help that he’s approaching it like a funeral march.

Is he being dramatic? Probably. Will that stop him? Absolutely not.

At least he’s not the only person here being dramatic.

Hunched over in the middle of the room’s couch is none other than Glenn. He’s burying his head in his hands, and he looks like he came right out of a goddamn horror movie.

Ingrid, who looks more ready to throw down than she does to comfort, slides right in next to Glenn. He  _ collapses _ into her.

Maybe drama runs in the family?

Meanwhile, Sylvain is laying sideways in Rodrigue’s lounge chair. He’s laying in the chair like it’s fucking therapy couch and his wide-eyed gaze is focusing on the ceiling. If Felix didn’t know any better, he would say Sylvain is having some sort of quiet epiphany.

“She’s  _ ridiculously _ hot.”

Classic Sylvain.

Felix, not being a complete idiot, decides he does not want to unpack the information about said hot girlfriend and situates himself next to Glenn on the couch. Drama is better than whatever Sylvain plans to say. Not that he  _ plans _ what comes out of his mouth.

“What’s the situation?” Ingrid cuts through with all the grimness of a murder investigation.

Sylvain picks himself up from his position on the lounge chair and twists around until he’s sitting like a normal human being. He immediately leans towards them once he rights himself.  _ Conspiratorially. _

“So here’s the situation,” Sylvain starts in a hushed voice. “Dimitri got stuck in traffic, and we don’t know when he’ll get here, and your dad—”

Felix twitches.

“—is out buying rolls for dinner.”

“Wait, we didn’t have any rolls?” Felix asks, choosing to focus on the wrong thing. 

Glenn speaks up from Ingrid’s lap, “Sylvain dropped them.”

Sylvain rolls his eyes. “Well I’m sorry that  _ she _ —” he tilts his head in a vague direction towards the kitchen, “— surprised me.”

“Is she making dinner?” Felix asks, once again choosing to not think too hard about his dad’s new girlfriend. Compartmentalism is a wonderful thing.

“She insisted! Something about how she wanted to make a good impression on the family—”

Glenn groans.

“—or whatever.”

Ingrid interrupts, “Are you sure it’s not just because you ruined her dinner already?”

Sylvain shoots Ingrid a look, but she merely quirks an eyebrow in response as if to say:  _ Go on, say something, I fucking dare you.  _ The familiar exchange almost makes Felix feel like this entire scenario isn’t completely absurd. 

Almost.

“—Anyways!” Sylvain presses on, completely ignoring Ingrid’s comment. “That’s all we know.”

Ingrid pinches the bridge of her nose before continuing. “So you don’t actually know anything about her?”

“I just met her five minutes ago!”

A new voice interrupts Ingrid and Sylvain’s not-quite-an-argument, stopping them in their tracks. 

“You must be Felix and Ingrid.”

Felix’s head shoots up to find the source of the new voice. The voice of his dad’s midlife crisis.

Goddess help him, nothing Sylvain or Glenn said could have prepared him for this.

When he was imagining what she could possibly look like to earn such an extreme reaction from everyone else, she’s not at all what he pictured. Which means he’s a fucking idiot. He absolutely should have imagined a completely  _ stacked _ woman in a crop top with fishnets and short shorts, yet for some reason he didn’t.

Everything suddenly makes more and less sense all at once.

She clears her throat, and Felix realizes that she’s waiting for him to shake her hand. And he’s staring at her chest — staring so hard he didn’t even notice her extend her hand.

She retracts her hand.

“How was the drive…?” she offers. Somehow, her question is more awkward than when he didn’t shake her hand five seconds ago. Honestly, that’s an impressive feat in itself.

Ingrid coughs.

Despite two failed attempts at conversation, his dad’s new girlfriend still tries again. “Sylvain said his girlfriend couldn’t make it.” Which is a polite way of saying she didn’t want to come. “Is your boyfriend coming or…?”

“He’s stuck in traffic.”

“Oh, okay.”

She shifts her weight a little bit and says nothing further. A pin could drop right now, and the entire world would hear it.

“I’m going to…” she trails off and walks back towards the kitchen.

Once she’s gone, Felix finally says what needs to be said. “What the actual fuck.”

Ingrid immediately pounces on the opportunity. “That’s not what I thought she’d look like.”

There’s a shared look of suffering between Glenn and Felix as they think about the fact that their dad is sleeping with her.

Sylvain choses to interject in the worst way possible. “I told you! She’s stupidly hot! If Rodrigue wasn’t—”

Glenn shoots up from his position on Ingrid’s lap. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence!”

Sylvain raises his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to talk about your future step-mom like that.”

Glenn flops back down, falling face first into Ingrid’s lap and groaning all the way down.

Sylvain gets a smirk on his face that Felix wants to immediately punch right off. He opens his mouth, and Felix shoots up to silence him, only to be stopped by the sound of the doorbell ringing.

Rather than deck Sylvain, Felix decides to be the bigger person and get the door. Also because it’s probably Dimitri.

Glenn’s not the only Fraldarius here who needs emotional support. Not that Felix is going to say that out loud. He probably doesn’t even need to. He’s so desperate right now he’s sure that everyone else knows.

Felix yanks the door open with all the ferocity that Sylvain deserves to receive, and Felix thanks every god out there when he sees Dimitri on the other side. 

He’s dressed exactly like how he dressed for every formal occasion they had in highschool together: khakis, white button down shirt, and blue sweater vest, with the added touch of a small bouquet of white lilies as a gift. The outfit looks horribly out of place now that Dimitri is taller and a completely jacked wall of muscle that’s missing an eye. But the nostalgia warms Felix in a way he wasn’t expecting. Dimitri’s attempts to impress are so endearingly dumb sometimes. It reminds Felix why he loves him so much.

Dimitri lights up like the sun when he sees Felix. “I’m so sorry I’m late. I didn’t know if I should get her a gift—”

Oh right. They’re in a crisis right now. He can moon over Dimitri later.

“—but I didn’t know what wine she would like, so I thought flowers—”

Felix decides to stop Dimitri’s rambling and grabs his free hand, yanking him inside.

“Get in here. It’s bad.”

“I’m sorry?”

Felix rolls his eyes and yanks a little more aggressively. Not that he needs to. Dimitri follows him just easily as he did when they were kids.

Sylvain waves them in. “Hey Dimitri! You’re just in time to meet Rodrigue’s sugar baby!”

Ingrid steps in before Dimitri can vocalize the confusion that’s made its way to his face. 

“We don’t know that for a fact.”

Sylvain throws his hands up in disbelief. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“But we don’t know yet,” Ingrid insists.

Dimitri interrupts the two of them before it can escalate. “What an earth are you talking about?” 

Glenn, of all people, answers him. “Dad’s having a midlife crisis. We’re discussing an intervention.”

Dimitri pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “I’m sure you’re overreacting.”

“I’m not!”

“— And I know it’s hard to accept that your father is seeing someone after your mother’s passing,” Dimitri continues as if Glenn didn’t say anything. 

Noble idiot that he is for having faith in Rodrigue, Felix decides he has to break the news to him. “She’s young.  _ Really _ young.”

“And if we’re being totally honest, she’s kind of dressed like a stripper.”

“Sylvain!” Ingrid snaps.

“Tell me I’m wrong!”

Dimitri, ever the mediator, steps between them yet again. “I’m not going to judge a woman I’ve never met —”

At that moment, there came the sound of heels clicking on the tile, interrupting their… whatever this conversation was.

“Is Rodrigue back — Dimitri?”

Is that… recognition in her voice? There’s no way...

Dimitri’s head snaps to the sound of her voice so fast that Felix is afraid he’ll give himself whiplash.

“Byleth?” Dimitri says in equal amounts of shock and recognition.

Oh, goddess no.

No one dares say a single word. Felix feels like his head might explode if he says anything. Not that this stops everyone from burning a hole into Dimitri with how hard they’re staring at him.

Byleth — Felix now realizes that no one ever asked for her fucking name; how awful of them — opens her mouth and closes it repeatedly.

Finally, she settles on a sentence. Her words are quiet and slow, with a deliberateness that is unmistakable.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was invited to dinner,” Dimitri responds, wary of whatever is happening. “How do you know Rodrigue?”

“We met a few months ago, and we just… hit it off, I guess?”

Another painful pause.

“Is he the same Rodrigue that…?” she trails off.

“Yes.”

_ “Oh.” _

Dimitri just nods, his lips pressed into a grim line.

Byleth looks away and tugs uselessly at the hem of her way too short shirt. “We can’t tell him about this.”

“Absolutely not,” Dimitri agrees.  _ Emphatically _ agrees. There’s a story here, and Felix isn’t sure he wants to know it.

Byleth nods, still looking away from Dimitri. “Good,” she says, and then shuffles her way back towards the kitchen. 

The second she leaves, Glenn immediately springs to life. His death glare is on full display, and Dimitri is the prime target. 

“Spill,” he practically growls, and Felix can’t say he disagrees with the sentiment.

Dimitri, rather than answer, stumbles over to a free chair and plops himself down. He blinks, looking dazed out of his mind, and runs his free hand through his hair in a way that screams for a need to drink himself into a stupor.

“Do… do you remember when I talked about my girlfriend in college?” Dimitri finally asks.

Oh no.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. It’s too absurd; it just  _ can’t _ be real. Felix refuses to accept that the woman who finally convinced Dimitri to see a therapist, marking the beginning of his recovery, is dating his dad.

There’s no way.

It’s just too fucking weird.

Glenn voices Felix’s exact thoughts. “Please don’t tell me that that sentence is going to end how I think it’s going to end.”

Dimitri nods solemnly.

Sylvain leans back in his chair and gives a low whistle. “Can’t say I saw that coming.”

Ingrid exhales deeply, and Felix notices that she’s gone absolutely rigid. “Is… is this —” Ingrid stops abruptly and takes another deep breath while her hands clutch the edge of her skirt. “Is this the same girlfriend you talked about marrying?”

Felix’s mind short circuits.

He opens his mouth to ask Dimitri a thousand questions, but he doesn’t know if he even wants the answers to them. He feels like he  _ needs _ to know. Before he can say anything, the sound of the door opening cuts him off.

His father steps through the door, completely ignorant to silent war raging in Felix’s head, carrying a bag of dinner rolls.

Felix has never wanted dinner less in his life.

—

Dinner is so quiet that Felix can hear every tick from the clock. No one dares to say a word after  _ that _ revelation. Not that they don’t want to. It’s just way too much to process.

Therefore, no one is processing anything at all. As it should be.

Everyone is just staring at their dinner trying to figure out what the fuck to do with any of this information. Not even eating it. Just staring at it.

Except Rodrigue. He’s happily buttering his roll, completely oblivious to the storm of awkwardness next to him. Goddess, Felix wishes that was him right now.

He  _ wants _ to take Dimitri’s hand and hold it like his life depends on it. He needs some semblance of support through this absurdity. But Dimitri is the  _ cause _ of the absurdity. He probably held hands with Byleth, and Byleth has probably held hands with his dad. That’s like holding hands with his dad, and he’s not going to hold his dad’s hand!

It occurs to Felix that he  _ might _ be overreacting. Maybe. Jury’s still out on that.

There isn’t a manual on how to deal with your dad dating a woman young enough to be his daughter, who also happens to be your boyfriend’s ex. The ex that he was going to  _ propose _ to.

Goddess, he needs a drink.

Rodrigue decides now is a perfect time to start a conversation, because he’s completely unaware of the chaos lurking underneath.

“I’m so sorry that I had to step out when the three of you got here.” He nods in the general direction of Felix, Dimitri, and Ingrid. “Did you have a chance to introduce yourselves?”

Dimitri  _ freezes. _ Which feels obvious in hindsight, since he’s a horrible liar under most circumstances. He opens his mouth to say something and no sound comes out.

Lovely.

Byleth steps in to save Dimitri from himself. “They arrived just before you came back. We —” she had a strong start, but her voice is morphing into something stilted and awkward. “We didn’t have a chance to talk.”

“I’ll introduce you then,” his father says, a fond smile making its way to his face when he looks at Byleth. She returns his expression with a smaller smile, and Felix wants to  _ die. _

Or bash his head in. Both are good options. Maybe if he’s lucky, the Goddess will smite him right now.

His father clears his throat, and Felix stares at the bottle of wine on the table as hard as humanly possible. “This Felix, my youngest,” he says gesturing in the direction of Felix and Dimitri. “And his…”

Rodrigue pauses, and Felix wants to scream at how he picks  _ now _ to be an awkward dad.

“Partner,” Dimitri adds, probably sensing how much Felix wants to die.

“— partner, Dimitri,” Rodrigue continues as if the atmosphere from the silence didn’t just about kill them all.

He gestures at the other end of the table, where Ingrid is piling her plate in preparation to stress eat, and Glenn is trying his best to destroy his liver. “And this is Glenn’s fiancée, Ingrid.”

No one says anything once he’s finished with the belated introductions. A thousand pins are probably dropping right now.

Felix is struck by the image of his father being replaced by a labrador that’s very pleased with himself, and honestly, he can’t say the image is off. He’s about as aware as one right now. The dog might actually be an improvement. They could all probably use a therapy dog right now, anyway.

Sylvain tries to discreetly clear his throat.

“So,” Byleth starts, now that the awkward silence is strangling them. “You all seem rather close.”

Rodrigue laughs. “I would certainly hope it seems that way.” He gazes off in the distance with a warm expression. “They all grew up together. In fact —”

This sentence better not go where Felix suspects it’s going.

“—I often consider all of them my children.”

Oh Goddess,  _ why? _

Glenn chokes on his drink. Sylvain, the bastard that he is, leaps up from his seat and hauls Glenn to the nearest bathroom. “Don’t worry guys, I got this! You just keep on enjoying dinner.”

Ingrid looks like she’s ready to murder him for taking her fiancé away from her. Felix can’t say he blames Sylvain; he’d do the same in a heartbeat if it meant he could leave.

“So,” Ingrid grits out, trying to distract Rodrigue from the extreme reaction just now. “What do you do, Byleth?”

“I teach.”

She says nothing else. Not exactly a stunning conversationalist. Not that Felix can judge, since he’s literally said nothing since they sat down. He doesn’t plan to change that either.

“She’s a professor,” Rodrigue adds rather proudly.

Dimitri drops his fork.

That immediately gets everyone’s attention, for better or worse. Rodrigue opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Dimitri lets out an awkward laugh. “Sorry everyone, I just didn’t have a good grip on it.”

It's a horrible lie. Rodrigue’s skepticism almost screams how much he doesn’t believe Dimitri, but he doesn’t say anything. Felix, however, lacks the same restraint as his father.

He leans in closer to his boyfriend. “Explain,” he says just loud enough for Dimitri to hear and no one else.

“When we were dating she talked about wanting to teach professionally.” Well that’s not so bad. “...And we met because she was my tutor.” Which still doesn’t explain his overreaction, unless…

Felix connects some dots he doesn’t want to.

“Please tell me you didn’t roleplay that with her.”

Dimitri says nothing, and Felix contemplates throwing himself out the window. It won’t kill him, but he sure wishes it would.

Glenn and Sylvain choose that moment to finally reappear, and Felix has never been so happy to see them in his entire life. Even if they were only gone for two minutes.

Glenn is a stiff as a board and sits down like his chair is going to spontaneously turn into a torture device. Sylvain, on the other hand, looks far too casual for the situation at hand. He slides right back into his seat and starts making some headway on his dinner as if they aren’t in the weirdest possible scenario.

Doesn’t change the fact that the conversation is so dead that Felix suspects someone took it behind a barn and put it out of its misery.

Sylvain doesn’t let that stop him though. “So, how’s that scarf coming along?” 

Goddess bless Sylvain and his mastery over small talk, because Dimitri immediately perks up.

“I’ve made a lot of progress recently,” Dimitri informs them and gets that dopey look on his face. It never fails to make Felix’s heart do backflips. He really needs to get a handle on just how sappy Dimitri makes him.

Sylvain nods and hums. “How close would you say you are to finishing it?”

“It might be done today, depending on when I get home.”

Felix’s eyes narrow at that. Dimitri isn’t an idiot and notices rather quickly, turning away from the full force of his boyfriend’s glare.

“Last time we talked, you said you were about halfway done.”

Dimitri fiddles with a strand of his hair, and his face is almost completely pink. “Ah, well… I had some free time the other night.”

Unbelievable. That dumbass stayed up all night. “Did you even sleep?”

Dimitri lets out a weak chuckle. “Eventually…” he offers, and Felix can’t help but groan.

“I swear you’re the worst at sleeping.” Felix loves Dimitri, he really does, but sometimes he really wants to smack some self-care into him. As if that’s a thing you can smack into someone.

Byleth actually lets out a laugh at that. “He’s just the worst at it, isn’t he?” she jokes. 

Everyone freezes, reeling from the implications. Rodrigue especially.

Ingrid shoves three whole rolls into her mouth at once.

Glenn grabs the wine bottle off the table and starts chugging.

Byleth and Dimitri are looking at each other, wide-eyed and terrified.

Rodrigue’s face contorts like he just ate a lemon, trying to process just what exactly that sentence is implying. “What—”

Felix can’t help but watch the oncoming disaster. 

Byleth scrambles for a defense or a misdirection. “I was — I meant — It’s just —”

“So!” Sylvain says loudly. “Bernadetta won a writing contest!”

She won that contest a month ago.

“That’s incredible!” Dimitri, who absolutely knows that fact already, comments enthusiastically. “You must be so proud of her.”

Sylvain smiles, like the liar and saint that he is. “She worked on it for ages! I told her that she was good to submit it three drafts before she did, but you know how she is.”

Dimitri laughs, knowing exactly how Bernadetta is. Byleth also laughs, despite the fact that Felix knows she has no idea who the fuck Bernadetta even is.

“You can’t just stop the story there! I have to know what she wrote!” Byleth adds, taking Sylvain’s lifeline like her own depends on it. Which it sort of does, now that Felix thinks about it. “Spare no details.”

Sylvain launches into a long-winded recap about Bernadetta’s ordeal with the contest, making sure to describe every minute detail of her story. Rodrigue can’t get a single word in edgewise, and eventually, he either gives up or forgets entirely. Felix prays it’s the latter.

They only talk about Bernadetta for the rest of the night. Somehow, it works.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to imagine that they tell him eventually, just not now.
> 
> Huge shout out to my betas, Abby and Ari, for fixing over 100 errors in this. Also shout out to Nick and Emma for being my cheerleaders lmao.


End file.
